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During the last two weeks, I have experienced a tremendous internal “paradigm shift” when it comes to issues regarding racial diversity within my workspace (a k-12 school.) Still forming thoughts and wrangling with what I held true for a long time and what I am starting to realize as inaccurate “read” on some of these issues. Suffice it to say that I was myopic in my view. Isn’t it ironic how I, a Chinese woman who belongs to the LARGEST population in the world, have been thinking of myself as a “minority” race simply because I’ve lived in the U.S.A. for the past 20 years and have taken on, without questioning much, a predominately white perspective? I’ve only seen myself as belonging to the 5% of Asians in the U.S. and not as belonging to the 20% of World population for being Chinese, or to the 50% for being an Asian. (The population of “white” is reported at under 20% worldwide, lower than African/of African descent.) So, when we promote the notion of a Global Perspective to our students, we need to keep using different lenses when interpreting world events, history, cultures, power agents, conflicts, etc. And this HAS everything to do with literature we publish for our young!

Several things brought this on — one is looking at the make-up of my students at school and thinking about what message they are subconsciously receiving day in and day out. And reading really good books about various groups of young people also makes me ponder. Discussing my own racial identity with friends and doing some quick google searches and reading articles.